Fillmore Noir
by YourFriendlyNeighborhoodGeek
Summary: Just a good old Noir story, With a few surpises along the way.


The room stinks, and not just because of the body. Spray Paint. Air Freshener. Cough Syrup. Reminds me of 5th grade.

I wasn't exactly what you'd call a model student in my earlier years. Yeah, I played the game. I ran counterfeit Pokemon cards. I set off some stink bombs. I tagged lockers. And yeah, I took a ride on the aerosol express and chugged the red syrup. That was my breaking point. That was my rock bottom.

"Who's the stiff?" I ask. I'm handed a dossier. Big kid....300 pounds, 6 feet even.

My blood turns cold. It can't be. I rush past the hall monitor barricade, but I already know the truth

Mikey Blumberg. One of the greatest students this damn, god-forsaken school has ever known. Mikey was into drama mostly, poetry, ballet, artsy stuff like that. I never really got it, but whenever you needed someone to talk to or help on your English homework, Mikey was your guy. Everybody's best friend....ending up like this.

"Overdose. Looks like a trip gone wrong." Vallejo barks to the force. He turns to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Hard to believe our Little Mikey would get caught up in this junk, eh Fillmore?"

I shake off his hand. I don't buy it. I've been down this road. You point out any kid in the school, I can tell you if they're using. Mikey was no user.

Besides, I can't picture Mikey being into huffing or cough medicine. Why would someone who's all about peace and nature and mother Earth and that crap pump themselves full of factory shit?

I stay there. Long after everyone else had gone. Ingrid stays with me. She gets it. She gets that I can't just let this slide. I can't just let Mikey's body be hauled off, his fluids soaked up by some janitor's sawdust, never to been mentioned again. I make a promise: I'll find them, Mikey. I'll make sure the bastards who did this won't hurt anyone else. Ingrid tells me it's time to go. I agree...but as I leave, I think of one last thing I can do for Mike.

The crime scene's been photographed. The school's gotten all the information they will. I look at Mikey's bloated face, mouth and nose smeared with a sickly artificial rainbow of spray paint, his eyes bulging from his head. I remember something he told me once...

I close his eyes as I say, "Good Night, Sweet Prince. And a flight of angels sing thee to thy rest."

"Hamlet." Ingrid says. I look at her a moment, confused. "The quote. It's from Hamlet."

I chuckle as I walk out. Looks like Mikey had one last thing to teach me. "C'mon." Ingrid calls from the hall. "We've got work to do."

We start with Mikey's old gang. The kids fresh from Third Street Elementary. Usually, they all stuck together. Sometimes, they would be in the halls, talking by the water fountain. Sometimes, they would be by the gym, lobbying the coach for a tetherball.

Today, they were all at Mikey's old locker.

Gretchen and Gus were messes, sobbing all over each other. Vince was surprisingly solemn, but one look and anyone could see how sick he was with grief. Spinelli....

Spinelli was angry.

"C'MON, TEEJ!" She shouted. "WE ALL KNOW WHO DID IT! Are-Are we just going to let them get AWAY with it?!?"

TJ Detweiller. Problem kid. Ringleader. Since he came here there have been two stink bombings, three stolen teachers' lunches, and an incident involving a golf cart and the school boiler room.

I get the feeling he won't cooperate.

"HEY!" Spinelli spots us first. "BEAT IT, PIG!" She gets that look in her eye. The look of someone filled with animal rage and human grief. If it weren't for the surveillance cameras, she'd rip me apart right there.

"Easy, Spinelli. We're not after you guys. Not today." I flash my badge, but it's barely necessary: If there's one face TJ and Spinelli know at this school, it's mine.

"We're looking for info on Mikey's murder. Do you five know of anyone who had it out for Mikey? Anyone w-" (I almost ask 'with access to air freshener and spray paint' before I realize how pointless that would be) "Anyone with a motive?"

Spinelli launches in on us, her fist shaking menacingly. "Listen, Bacon, why don't you and the creep from the deep here take off before I-"

She's instantly silenced as TJ calmly raises his hand. He slowly walks over to me, deliberately. He juts his finger in my face. "You want to know, Fillmore? You want to know who could have done this?" He acts tough, but I can already see the tears welling up in his eyes. "You talk to those...those JERKS who spend their WEEKENDS getting high!"

TJ leans on the lockers. "Tino's crew. You talk to Tino's crew. And you PRAY you get to them before we do."

I raise my eyebrow. Tino Tonitini. Another one of the new students. Seems we've had a flood of them lately. Tino got on TJ's bad side after he tipped us off to TJ's first prank, but I know Tino and his gang. Users? Yes. Murderers? I don't think so.

But I've been wrong before.

For a moment, I ponder saying "Somehow, I don't think a one-sided petty feud would escalate to murder, TJ," but one look at Spinelli reminds me how much I enjoy having a nose to hang my glasses on. "Don't do anything rash, Detweiller. Anything happens to Tino's gang while I'm on this case, I know who to come look for." At that, me and Ingrid decide to get out of there before Spinelli relieves us of our organs.

Tino, of course, is shocked and insulted at the insinuation that he or his friends might have ANYTHING to do with the murder until I get a chance to explain.

So I tell Tino I don't think he had anything to do with the murder. But I know he's on SOMETHING. That gets him to shut up. I ask him who his supplier is, what exactly he's doing. He's nervous, but I reassure him: I've got bigger things to worry about than how he spends his weekend.

He tells me Lor's brother (she has no idea which one) gets them Pot. That's all. He says no one in his crew touches aerosol or cough syrup unless they need to clean a floor or fight the sniffles.

A damn dead end.

Ingrid and I head back to the office to look over the facts of the case. I ask Ingrid to look over the footage from last night's surveillance cameras while I go over the eyewitness reports. Mikey was waiting for his mom to pick him up. His crew had all been picked up earlier. His mom shows up at 4:30, Mikey's nowhere to be found. Next morning, Mikey's dead in the nurse's office. The only thing astray, aside from the hulking body in the room, was a missing bottle of cough syrup.

So what I'm able to gleam from all this is that our resident druglord does things on the cheap.

Ingrid's information is a bit better. On the tape, she finds two people dragging a huge bag into the nurse's office before running. Taller kids, skinny, probably two girls, judging from the hair.

We're finally getting somewhere.

Disco.

Ingrid took the liberty of pulling all the original yearbook photos on girls over 5 feet. Luckily for us, we only needed one match: no doubt in my mind that one would crack and sell out the other during interrogation.

Patti Mayonnaise...not since she's been sporting the short-haired look, but, hey, wigs can do anything. We keep her photo out.

Pepper Ann....close...but she couldn't match the two in the footage. Her hair was too curly to be one, and she had too much of it to fit the other.

Nicky Little....Disco. We decide to pay her a visit.

We spotted Pepper Ann and her crew walking down the hall. We tail them a bit before Ingrid elbows me in the gut and points:

Milo. Of course. I hadn't thought of the idea that a guy might wear his hair long. Of course, I don't put much stock in hair myself.

we decide to play the casual card. "Hey, Pepper," Ingrid spouts. Nicky and Milo jump a little, as though they'd just seen a roach. We've got 'em. "So, you hear about what happened to Mikey? Pretty awful, huh?"

Next thing I know, Nicky and Milo are leading us around a corner, tears streaming. "P-Pepper," Nicky tells PA. "W-We need to talk to Safety Patrols F-Fillmore and Ingrid a-alone..."

Next thing we know, the two are spilling their guts, shouting "we're sorry, we're sorry" and blubbering so much we can't get any info from them. It takes us ten minutes to calm them down.

Milo manages to get in speaking shape first. He explains how he had started using cough syrup to take the edge off of Finals season, and never quite got around to quitting.

What a surprise.

Eventually, his parents get suspicious of his incredibly chronic cold, take him off the stuff. That's when his dealer stepped in.

Months later, Milo's hooked. He'll do almost anything this guy asks to keep the bitter syrup flowing. I begin to itch. I know that feeling.

So when his dealer asks him to move a bag for him....Milo reluctantly agrees. Nicky spies on this exchange, and, unable to bear seeing Milo go through the pain of withdrawal, agrees to help him. Only thing Nick is guilty of is being too good a friend to too bad a guy.

I begin to grill Milo on his dealer, but Milo says he never got a good look at his face. I ask him for anything, Height, voice, ANYTHING....before we're interrupted by a shout in the hall. "FIGHT!"

TJ, you stupid sonuvabitch.

In seconds, the hall is full of people eager to get an eyeful of TJ giving Tino's bony ass a beatdown. Ingrid and I try to break through the throng pull the idiots apart, when Ingrid notices something: Nicky and Milo aren't around any more. I tell Ingrid they probably ran for it....but then I don't get a response. I look around in a panic for Ingrid, for Ann, For Nicky, For Milo, for anybody.....then a sharp pain hits me in the back of the head, and introduces me to his good friend darknes

Hours later, I begin to come back. My arms are pinned to my side: I'm tied up to a chair. Of course. I hear Ingrid moan behind me, tied to the other side.

I manage to glance around. Milo and Nicky are tied up beside us, still out. Guess it's a comfort that they weren't trying to ditch us.

"Wakey-wakey, Fillmore? So glad we could finally meet." a disguised, scratchy voice greets me. Just out of view in the shadows, too: figures.

"Let me take a wild guess as to what you're going to do." I spit at the figure, trying to find a way to work my hands free. "You're going to wipe us out, then go on to tighten your grasp over X Middle School. So how're you going to do it?" I glance around the room: someones with the figure.

"Can't use a gun...too messy. People will ask questions.

Can't bash our heads in... same reason. So tell me, what's going to happen to us? What's the last chapter of Cornelius Fillmore?"

The figure laughed. Even in it's disguised voice, it was a horrible, inhuman laugh.

"You and Ingrid are...close, yes?"

I shift in my seat a bit. Don't like to talk much about it, but when a girl has her arms around you and her tongue is inviting yours over for a game of freezetag....

"Go on."

"*Sigh*...Poor Ingrid. Tempted from the straight and narrow by her own partner....it's a shame this case took so much out of him...was so stressful..." I hate where this is going.

"Oh, if only he had never met that Milo kid and his druggie friend...if only he had had the courage to turn him down....

....if only he hadn't relapsed and taken his partner with him.... they might still be with us today."

My eyes go wide as I realize what's in store. I hear a horrible gulping sound behind me. I turn my head as far as it can so fast I almost whiplash:

Ingrid's nose is being held. And that means she has to use her mouth.

And that means she's swallowing the bottle of cough syrup jammed in it.

"NO!" I shout. The bottle falls to the floor, almost empty, and Ingrid begins to moan as the world starts playing tricks on her and the floor decides to become jell-o. I've got to do whatever I can.

"Ingrid...stay with me...everything's going to be-" I'm cut off as the same hand that shoved the bottle in Ingrid's face sprays some red paint in mine.

I cough and hack as my lungs begin to feel that familiar burning... I look up to see who could be doing this, who could be helping this monster.

"Y-you....why?...."

My eyes follow the can to a hand. Which leads to an arm. Which leads to a body. Which leads to a face populated by two streams of tears.

Doug Funnie. The new kid. "I'm sorry...." he sobs. "So, so sorry..."

"Come along, Doug!" The voice barks. "Leave the other two. Plan B will take care of them."

"Plan B?...."I manage to moan. The figure flips a switch on their way out, and a low humming fills the air. Seconds later, it's joined by a scent:

Pine.

Air freshener.

Enough to send us all on one last trip.

I don't have much time.

"Ingrid?...C-...Can you hear me?"

"Fillmore? I can't....what's this...."

"Ingrid...we gotta...we gotta break these chairs....OK? help me....help me tip them over...."

My head is swimming already from the spray paint, and the air freshener is making it worse by the minute. It takes all my energy to force my body to vaguely move the direction it needs to.

It takes what feels like hours, but we finally manage to knock our chairs down. I'm too weak to even move, let alone untie Nicky and Milo. This feels like the end....

"Ingrid...I...." my last words are interrupted by a sudden crash...and the world once again goes dark.

Next thing I know, I'm in the hall, coughing my guts out. And TJ is wiping his lips.

"Man, don't EVER count on getting CPR from me AGAIN!"

I'm still light-headed as I ask about Ingrid.

"She'll be fine. That Tish girl is helping her get that junk out." He says, motioning toward a trash can and the sound of Ingrid retching.

"Nicky and Milo...."

"They're OK. Pepper Ann is with them right now."

"Buh-...where were we?"

"Janitor's closet. Door was locked, so Tino broke the glass. Now take it easy, numbskull. you've almost suffocated."

"Wait...why are you and the Weekend kids...."

"It's...complicated."

I wheeze. "I think I've got some time."

TJ spills the whole beans. Turns out Mikey had been sweet on Tish behind his group's back. Of course, they didn't believe it at first, until Tish was able to reveal all the same intimate facts about Mikey that his own friends knew.

"Figures that just before they tell us....Mikey...." TJ choked up a bit here. "The guy had to pull off one last Shakespeare before he went: Romeo and Juliet."

By the time he finishes, my head is feeling a lot clearer....but the case is still muddy. Who's manipulating Doug? Why would they want Mikey dead? What did all this have to do with cough syrup and inhalants? Was it connected to the flood of new students? If so, how?

Of course, thanks to that little bit back there, my gut is telling me to get some cough syrup. I ignore it best I can.

"Fillmore..." Pepper Ann approached me. "I think we should talk to someone about this. All this stuff so early for us...it's not easy..." I sigh. Of course it's not: murder and a murder attempt in one day are hardly a walk in the park

"Maybe we can talk to the guidance counselor, or a teacher, or..."

Or....

Or or or....

"Milo! I never got to ask you: How'd you get into the building after hours?"

Milo shrugged. "My hookup had a set of keys....do you think they work here?"

"Yeah...I think they do. Do you still have them? Look in your pockets for them."

I whirl my attention over to Tish. "Tish! You were spending so much time with Mikey: did he ever spend any time alone with any of the faculty? Was he ever approached?"

Tish slowly nodded. "Yeah, our first week, he talked to-"

"Principal Dawn S. Folsom." I finish for her.

"VALLEJO!" I shout as Ingrid and I storm into the office, followed by a veritable procession: the Weekenders, the Third Street kids, and Pepper Ann's gang.

"Doug Funnie's schedule. What class does he have now?"

Vallejo had it within seconds. "Now? Right now he has a free period...."

"I know where he is. Thanks Vallejo!"

Ingrid holds me back a moment before we bust in. "Take a good look at her face. Savor this moment," she grins.

TJ kicks down the door, and Ingrid and I saunter in freely. "Why, Principal Folsom: you look like you've seen a ghost."

Ingrid was right: this IS savory.

"Why-....why Fillmore! And Ingrid! And...so many of our fine..."Her eyes meet Milo's and Nicky's. "...students. W-what can I do for you?"

Ingrid grins. "Oh, that's easy, Principal. We just had a question for you. A hypothetical."

I can practically see the sweat begin to bead on Folsom's forehead.

"Let's say, for a second, that you wanted to become more revered in the educational community....let's say that the way you decided to do this was by agreeing to take on more Elementary school kids than ever before, and encourage transfers....

Now, let's say, that, once these new students arrive, you begin to wonder if you've bit off more than you can chew....*coughTJcough*...

Now, let's say that, in that jumbled smattering of incompetence you call a brain, you decide the best way to increase your hold on the students is to gain some sort of physical ground like....oh, we'll say some kind of mental or physical addiction....maybe....DRUGS, for instance....

Now, let's say that you realize that real drugs are too dirty a business for you, so you decide to go for something more...legally ambiguous. Like, let's say...cough syrup and inhalants, for starters....

Now, let's say that you realize fully well that you wouldn't be able to buy the amounts of inhalants and cough syrup you need to run this little venture without people getting suspicious...Well, you might get the students to buy you some, right? After all, anyone can get their hands on things like cooking spray, right? Your job is just to get it to kids in a way that can't be traced back to them. Wouldn't look good if the same kid was coming by every week and just getting a can of spray paint, right?

Now, let's say you realize you couldn't outright ask kids to do this for you...you'd have to trick them...maybe you'd go up to new students that you thought were vulnerable, far away from most of their friends....After all, Doug had to leave his friend Skeeter behind, that's not easy, right? And let's say you offered a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear....and by the by, could they pick up some cough syrup for you, you have allergies....and maybe some spray paint, you have a deckchair you want to recolor....and you drag them in deeper and deeper before you finally spring on them what all that stuff was for, before you tell them that they're already in over their heads...

Now, let's say someone else saw through this plan. Let's say someone like Mikey. Let's say you approached that someone, and that someone said they knew exactly what you were up to....they'd DEFINITELY have to go..." At this point, Spinelli let out a growl. Ingrid continued.

"Now, let's say that you DID take care of Mikey....you'd want it to look like an accident, right? You'd probably get some junkie working for you to drag the body back here, make it look like the kid freaked out and overdosed.

Now, Principal Folsom. My question to you is...given ALL THAT....

would you REALLY be SO STUPID as to use your OWN set of keys and NEVER TRY AND GET THEM BACK?"

My cue. I jingle Folsom's keys out right in front of her face.

Folsom doesn't even try to argue. She flips her desk at us before making a break for the window.

"GET HER!" Spinelli shouts.

The chase. I always love this part. Folsom managed to awkwardly shimmy down the tree outside her office.

"Murder, attempted murder, multiple counts of endangerment of a minor, and now resisting arrest! " I call as I jump down after her. "I think you're setting some kind of record!"

Damn, how could she move so FAST? And I was NOT expecting her to clear the sign. But then, I guess a woman can do amazing things when she's desperate.

And I'd say being chased by about fifteen rage-filled kids with about 30 years on you qualifies. Especially if one of them is Spinelli.

Too bad Doug saw her first. And us. And realized instantly what was going on.

Too bad she had sent him out to buy spray paint today.

And too bad Doug was fast enough to catch her in the head with a sack of five hard aluminum bottles.

Too bad for her.

So, all's well that ends well, I guess. Folsom got hers: if she's on her best behavior, she might just get out of jail in time to whither into dust. Hear they're bringing in someone named Buttsavage or something to take over. The Third Street Kids are getting along fine with those Weekend stoners. (I think that makes Mikey smile, wherever he is). Milo's in some sort of program, and it's looking good. Doug had to do about a month in Juvie before the charges were dropped. Last I heard he had something going on with that Patti girl.

And me?

It's Friday afternoon, and I've got a full weekend ahead with the best partner the world's ever known.

Disco.


End file.
